


Off Centre

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [148]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Codependency, Gen, Memory Alteration, Pietro Has Issues, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Response to Returned Memories and Adjustment Period, So Many Goddamn Issues, Trauma, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 09:29:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13232892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: It is… there is a peace here. The sun is warm and bright, when it burns through the mist from the rainforest, and the noise of the creatures - the birds and monkeys, insects and frogs - can drown out his worries and fears most of the time.Most of the time. Not all.He must still live in proximity to her, after all.





	Off Centre

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prompt: Off Balance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11915883) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 
  * Inspired by [Off Kilter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13172835) by [EssayOfThoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts). 



> Sequel to [_Off Kilter_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13172835), itself a sequel to [_Off Balance_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11915883). Unlike last time I don't think a simple summary is good enough to explain everything, so read those two oneshots ( _Off Balance_ is 5k of words, and _Off Kilter_ is barely that) to get an idea of this one.
> 
> This was written while listening to [_Mechanical Instinct_ by Aviators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCrN0nGHWlI) and [_Twenty Seven_ by MS MR ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNcvEsfAJhk).
> 
> I do still have some ideas for the alternate dark sequel to Off Kilter, whether or not I write it depends on if I can get those ideas to settle down into something solid because they're having a whale of a time with _what if_ plot bunnies right now.

Pietro wakes, briefly, in Wanda’s arms, but he is tired and he has just been healed of a wound that might have killed him, so for all his fear and dread he falls asleep as his sister carries him from the Siberian compound. 

He wakes again, and he is not in Wanda’s arms. There is an engine humming, the soft noise of Rogers and Barnes talking in the near distance, and he can feel the weight of Wanda’s hand an inch from his on the blanket that now covers him. 

He doesn’t reach for her, but he doesn’t recoil either.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes again, he’s in a bed. It’s warm and comfortable, and the room around him is dim and dark, curtains drawn though the edges are bright with light. The room is large, the bed too, and he can see the edges of a door opposite him and a lamp beside him.

“Here,” says a voice, and a light flickers on.

Wanda’s face is pale and drawn, deep dark sleepless bags beneath her eyes. Her arms are half folded and she settles back into a chair by his bed, quiet and watchful.

He can’t see her mind. Her mind which has been there, huge and hulking, red and deadly, since the moment he raised her from her grave, some huge vast thing he cannot escape.

He can’t see it.

“Shh,” she says. “Shh.”

“Wanda,” he says and he is  _ scared _ and-

“You’re safe,” she says, soft and gentle and her arms are unfolding as though to reach to him. “I  _ swear _ to you, you’re safe.”

“Wanda,” he says. “Where’s your  _ mind?” _

 

* * *

 

It’s the meds, the doctors tell him, once Wanda has gone and his throat is raw from screaming. Just the medication he is on, while they checked over the healing Wanda had done to him. He is, they say, utterly healed - “Your sister did a good job,” they say - and he is left alone in the silent room, heart still slowing from racing.

He rises, and pulls the blinds.

 

* * *

 

They’re in Wakanda. T’Challa has, in making amends to Bucky, offered them some level of shelter for some unspecified period of time. Tucked out of the way, out of sight of the people of Wakanda and far from the sight of the rest of the world. Offered some safety until the world beyond Wakanda’s edges calms enough that they may walk freely once again.

It is… there is a peace here. The sun is warm and bright, when it burns through the mist from the rainforest, and the noise of the creatures - the birds and monkeys, insects and frogs - can drown out his worries and fears most of the time.

Most of the time. Not all.

He must still live in proximity to her, after all.

 

* * *

 

Away from battle, half the fear comes rushing back - only half, though, not all. He wonders at that, slightly, that only half his fear should return, and then thinks again. At least, he thinks, half the fear remains. The fear, the memories of the loss and betrayal are the strongest thing that hold him back from all his other memories hold.

 

* * *

 

His memories are this: old memories of fondness and love, sunlight days even in the worst of it all, where he had Wanda and his trust in her, and knew a safety and security he knows now to be all built on some kind of lies.

He’s not sure what the lies are, now, if he’s honest. But he knows they are lies, and that Wanda always held more power than him, and that they were not quite so in balance as they’d always believed.

If one leads, after all, and one follows, what happens when there is no one left to follow is far worse than when there is no one left to lead. When there is no pillar left to lean on, then one must simply fall.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t fear her, not quite as he once did. He can’t, now, not anymore, not having fought a battle with her at his back, fighting in his defence. He cannot ignore the past now, cannot discard all they have gone through when, for Wanda, it was all still so recent, when, though she knows her betrayal, she still feels as fondly of him as he once had of her.

He cannot deny that, after all. Not after she has twice saved his life and did not have to.

 

* * *

 

He glimpses Wanda’s mind - bright, strong, rich and red - when he is pouring juice one morning. She stays a shoulder-width distance from him while she makes her tea, bangles and bracelets gently clinking. He still recognises half of them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to him, and he almost drops his juice. “I should have- I couldn’t see your mind. I should have realised you wouldn’t see mine. That you would respond like that.”

As soon as the kettle clicks off she pours her drink and vanishes, and he has said not a word.

He is trembling, just slightly.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t dread her now, not the same way, not any more. He  _ can’t, _ he can’t no matter how much he might wish it. She went into battle at his back, trusted his judgement, accepted his claim of vengeful protection, saved his life twice - thrice if he counts the time she wiped his memory to do so.

He… he does fear her on some level, that has not changed. He does not tremble nor flinch when she draws close but he cannot make himself trust her and he will still flinch and tremble when he does not know what to do, when her proximity, inevitably, becomes too much. It is not  _ gone, _ he thinks, just faded. Once, his fear of her had been some bone-deep thing, instinctual and undeniable, born of betrayal and a breaking of all he’d ever known. Now…

Now he looks at her and he fears her, yes, and what she might do but he can see the sleepless bags beneath her eyes, the way her nails are chewed down, her lip torn from biting. He can remember her casting out scarlet in defence of him, fierce and frightfully strong, and her  _ words. _

**_“My_ ** _ brother. I’ve already hurt him. None of you are allowed to.” _

It’s not an apology. It’s nothing close. But Pietro watches his sister warily, around these rooms they’ve all been given, as she falls asleep over a book, as she practices sparring with Sam and Steve and Clint, and remembers that, for all the harm she’s done, she seeks to make amends. He fears her, yes, and he cannot help it, yes.

But it is not as it once was. He doesn’t know what to do with that.

 

* * *

 

“Kid,” he hears Clint saying one evening. He’s just outside the kitchen area, padded there on silent bare feet, an empty glass in hand. Nightmare after nightmare wakes him - old fears and new ones, and worse ones still - but he draws to a halt, and listens. “Kid, I don’t get why-”

“He doesn’t have to trust me,” says Wanda’s voice, and even looking he can barely see her mind, so shrunken down in sorrow and fearful hiding it is right now. “I do not think…. After all I have done, I do not think he will ever trust me, not as we once trusted.”

“But you trust him,” Clint says.

Pietro leans back against the wall, tilts his head against the hard panels and listens to the soft shift of cloth that he knows means his sister has shrugged.

“How can I not?” she says. “It is not the same for me as him.”

 

* * *

 

_ Not the same for me as him. _

He knows, without a shadow of doubt, precisely what Wanda meant.

 

* * *

 

He rubs his ribs, the smooth flesh where, by rights, there should be a horrible jagged scar, if he was still standing at all to feel it. It is, in its way, an ever-present reminder.

By rights, he should be dead.

By rights, a man who was an enemy, who became a kind of friend, nearly killed him.

By rights, he should have died in Siberia, or in Sokovia, or  _ anywhere _ rather than been living still.

But he lives. And most times, it is due to the person who some days he cannot stand to look at.

 

* * *

 

“Why,” he asks her. “Why did you-” he pauses, thinks, rephrases. “Before,” he says. “I know why you saved me then. I know you did not want to see me dead, I know you knew that for me to live I couldn’t remember you. I know that. But-”

“Siberia,” Wanda whispers. “You don’t-”

“I told you,” he says, voice soft, tone hard. “You could have let me die. You  _ should _ have let me die. You were always better equipped to live without me than I was without you.”

Wanda is silent, eyes downcast.

“And when I came to get you,” he continues, forcing the words out. “When I came to get you, do you remember what I  _ said?” _

“‘The only person allowed to hold my sister prisoner,’” Wanda quotes. “‘Or hurt her, or  _ kill her _ is  _ me.’” _ She looks up at him, eyes unflinching, and he hides the trembling of his hands in the speed of his blue. 

_ There is something broken in us, _ he thinks,  _ that we can think like this, and see no error. _

He thinks:  _ nothing was ever truly right. _

“Do you think,” Wanda says, cutting through his thoughts and her voice is hard and sad and grieving all at once, her eyes red but with tears and not with scarlet. “Do you truly think that after everything I would let you die, that I would lose you  _ again _ if I could help it?”

 

* * *

 

In its way, this is like the Facility all over again. Dodging around each other and sleepless nights, Wanda attempting to give him space except there is no space to be had when contained in so few rooms, in so little an area, and where he can sense her mind round every corner.

“I’m sorry,” Wanda whispers, when they meet again in the common area late one night. “If we could-” she swallows. “If it was safe for us to leave, I’d go.”

He looks at her, and knows she means it. Her mind has become a tiny shrunken thing as she tries to give him space, tucked and folded as far out of sight as she can make it, but still  _ present, _ still there enough he can feel it and fear it at the brink of his own. He shakes his head. “I dragged you into this,” he says, because he had. “You could have stayed out of everything but-”

“Pietro,” she says, and her voice is soft and sad and slightly scolding. When he looks at her her eyes are bright with tears. “Do you think I would have let you fight them all alone if I could have helped?”

 

* * *

 

They avoid each other. Back in the base it was obvious because it was so blatant, so clear an avoidance that it could not be ignored. Here, it is obvious because there is so little space, because as soon as one arrives the other leaves the room. Here, though he can stand proximity with her, there is not enough space to be had to ease his worry at the worst.

He can bear to be closer, but not when he cannot get farther.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t fear her. Not the same way, not now. Before it was instinctive, a total utter panic, utter and inescapable. Now it is…

He does not know what it is. Just that it is.

_ “My _ brother,” she had said, an undeniable and protective claim. “I’ve already hurt him. None of you are allowed to.”

He thinks, looking back on it, that it was just as much a claiming as what he said to Vision.

“The only person,” he had said, half a snarl. “Allowed to hold my sister prisoner, or hurt her, or  _ kill her, _ is  _ me.” _

She had sinned against him, had hurt him, and would not let others do to him anything even slightly similar if she could help it. For what she had done to him, for the vengeance only he had rights to, no one was allowed to hurt her but him.

Except vengeance…

He remembers Wanda’s words to Tony through near-delirium.

“Vengeance does no good,” she had told him. “And it will destroy those you care about as easily as those you hate.” 

They still operate, on some level, on those rules. All this disconnect between them, all this distrust and broken balance, this impossible state of things…

_ Together, _ he remembers,  _ Or not at all. _

 

* * *

 

Vengeance, he thinks, is in part to blame for why she’d torn herself from his mind in the first place.  _ Those you care about, _ she had said, holding him as, for so many times, he’d held her.  _ As easily as those you hate. _

 

* * *

 

“I love you,” he tells her. “And I hate you too.”

Wanda looks at him unblinking.

“I remember everything,” he says. “Everything you took and then some you had hidden. That… I cannot ignore it or discard it. We lived our whole lives as everything to each other and even…” he trails off.

“Even though I destroyed that,” Wanda says, “We still both remember what it was like.”

He looks at her, looks at her eyes - red with tears and not with scarlet - and nods.

She offers him her hand, offers a wry smile. “Together,” she says. “Or not at all.”

He does not take her hand, but he laughs.

 

* * *

 

“You are still my sister,” Pietro says, and watches far far off into the horizon, where the birds and clouds seem at the same level. “That is… . There is nothing in the world that can change that.”

“But you cannot trust me,” Wanda says. There is no judgement in her tone, no bitterness. This has ever been their way, in the end - to know each other, and accept. 

There is no judgement. He half wishes there was: if she judged him for that fear he could yell at her, yell and rage and fear and feel justified in doing so. If she judged him for it, he would know she was unrepentant and that all his fear was rightful. If she judged him, he would not feel so uncertain, and unsettled and so out of place. If she judged him, he would be justified. If she judged him, he would not feel so terrible those times he wants to hurt her. But she doesn’t judge him. She never would, never could. She could not judge him any more than, once, he could have judged her.

He holds out his hand to her. “Together,” he says. “I will not trust you, not as we once trusted each other, I  _ can’t.” _

Wanda’s hand takes his without hesitation. Somehow, he doesn’t flinch. “I would not ask you to,” she says. 

They don’t need to speak. To speak so much as they have over this is … it is a marker of how wrong everything is.

He cannot trust her, so she cannot lead them. He is not so good at leading, not as she was, with all her life to train her. But he cannot trust her to lead, so he must lead. Wanda, he knows, will abide unless -

“I will listen,” she says. “But if you are hurt-”

There is something broken in them, Pietro thinks again, that they can think like this, and see no error.

His hand tightens around hers. “I would not as you to.”

 

* * *

 

Vengeance is a dark thing and a dangerous thing and a powerful thing. Pietro’s vengeance is this:

Nothing.

He cannot trust his sister, but that is not his choice. That is what Wanda did to them.

He cannot follow his sister, but that is not his choice. That is what Wanda did to them.

He will lead them now, and that is a choice that Wanda will abide by, for many reasons. Because she owes him, and she knows it. Because he has right of vengeance and she is glad of that fact. Because she still trusts him utterly, though he cannot trust her.

Because, as ever, everything is wrong.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments!


End file.
